We Are Not Alone
by mille libri
Summary: When it's too late to say good-bye properly, how do you find a way to tell someone what they meant to you?


_This was something that came to me recently. I've never particularly identified with Andrew, so it was interesting walking in his shoes for a bit and thinking about how the years might have changed them all. _

* * *

Andrew Clark straightened his tie in the mirror; it had been so long since he'd worn one, he'd had to look up on YouTube how to tie it. Probably it wasn't strictly necessary to be so formal, but she had always brought out the best in him.

His gaze skipped over the small newspaper clipping his mother had sent him. He had read it often enough—he didn't need to read it again to remember the details. The degrees in art and journalism, the husband of fifteen years, the two daughters, the "courageous battle" with breast cancer. All of it images of a life he hadn't been able to share with her. Not that either of them had wanted that, in the end; they had gone as far together as they could, and the parting, when it came, had been neither surprising nor sorrowful.

Andy took another dissatisfied look in the mirror and ripped the tie off after all. His students never expected him to wear one; there was no reason Allison would, either. She was the one who had set him free in the first place.

This room, his childhood bedroom, was unchanged. The years between 2012 and his oh-so-promising high school wrestling career might never have happened. His letterman's jacket, returned by Allison just before she left for college, hung on the back of a chair. His trophies, meticulously dusted by his mother, lined the walls on specially built shelves.

He'd never been one for pictures, but there was one tucked into the side of his mirror, of him and Allison on a picnic. They'd been lying on the ground on a hideous plaid blanket she'd found in her garage, his head on her stomach, and she had held the camera above their heads. The resulting picture had an odd perspective, and she'd been unhappy with its composition, but Andy loved it. Something about the happiness in her face and the utter relaxation in his own made him smile. And he smiled now, looking at it, even knowing where those two happy faces would end up.

Leaving the room, he closed the door gently but firmly behind himself. He knew his mother would be itching to go up and straighten it, put everything back just as it had been before he came home. Increasingly when he came to visit he felt like an intruding ghost, a poltergeist haunting his own life and messing up his mother's careful organization. As a result, he returned to Shermer as seldom as possible. If his mother hadn't sent him that newspaper clipping, he wouldn't be here now.

It surprised him that Allison had come back here when she married; she had talked so often of getting away. "Israel, Africa, Afghanistan" had become their code for the countdown until they could leave all the bullshit behind them, and her journalism degree should have taken her wherever she wanted to go. Andy wished he could sit down with her and talk to her about why she'd come back, what she'd found here, and if it was what she had expected.

"Where you goin' all dressed up?" his dad asked, shuffling into the kitchen in his leather house shoes and eyeing Andy up and down in his sportcoat and khakis.

"Just … out." God, how he turned into a teenager again in his dad's presence! But he didn't want to tell his parents why he'd come to visit, or how strongly he felt the need to visit her grave. They wouldn't understand, and his dad would no doubt say things Andy didn't want to hear.

Not that they hadn't liked Allison. No, his dad had been all in favor of Andrew having a girlfriend. If he'd known Allison better, if she'd been more herself around him and less unfailingly polite, maybe he wouldn't have been so happy about it, but she wasn't, and he was, all of which had made it so much easier for Andy to be with her.

But they wouldn't understand why Andy needed to go stand in front of a mound of dirt to say good-bye to someone he hadn't seen or heard from in twenty years. Closer to twenty-five, he thought, since that last uncomfortable phone call. They hadn't known what to say to each other; they'd exchanged a few minutes of small talk and promised to talk again soon, but they never had.

"I'll see you later, Dad. You want me to bring back some pizza and wings, we can watch the game?"

"Sure. Sounds good, son."

Andy felt a sudden urge to hug the old man, but he pushed it down. They'd never been huggers, and he couldn't have explained to his father's satisfaction why he wanted to this time. His dad continued into the kitchen and Andy let himself out the front door, digging in his pocket for the keys to the rental car.

Some things you never forget; you could pick him up and set him down anywhere in Shermer and he'd know how to find his way. In high school, he'd gone to the cemetery quite a few times—once when his grandma died, sure, but after that with Bender, drinking beer and hanging out with the "criminal" crowd. They hadn't been as bad as he'd thought they might be—and Allison had come alive in the darkness and the gloom of the graveyard. Like the night had set something inside her free.

He wondered if she felt that way about it now.

* * *

It wasn't until he got there that Andy realized he didn't know where she was buried. Parking the car along one of the neatly paved little roads that crisscrossed the cemetery—much larger now than it had been in the '80s—he got out and hiked across the grass, looking for newly disturbed earth. He couldn't help looking at the names and numbers on the stones he passed. People he had known, like his kindergarten teacher, lay here. Others were notable for the length, or brevity, of their lives. A child's stone, the birth and death dates the same, stopped him in his tracks for a moment. He'd never gotten that far with any woman—a brief engagement five years ago had ended when it turned out that she wanted a man with a lot more ambition than Andy laid claim to—but standing there over that tiny little stone he could imagine what it must feel like to spend all those months hoping and dreaming and have those dreams end as soon as they began.

He shivered, turning away. It seemed increasingly unlikely that children were in his future, and he was okay with that. His two sisters had produced enough grandchildren between them to satisfy his parents, and his mother had long since given up pointing out "nice girls" to him. His kids, if he needed any, were the ones he taught and coached, pouring every ounce of what he had learned in high school into helping guide them through those treacherous hallways.

He was in the newer section of the cemetery now. It was a nice day for a walk, brisk fall weather, just enough chill in the air to make the sportcoat comfortable. Allison would have liked it, the peace and quiet. And maybe the Allison she had become would have liked to spend eternity in one place. The Allison he'd known would have preferred cremation and to have her ashes sprinkled into the ocean, so she could go everywhere she never had when she was alive.

There it was. The mound was just beginning to be covered over with grass. Allison Reynolds Gallagher, Devoted Wife and Mother.

Andy stood looking at that for a minute. It seemed wrong to have diminished her light into those four simple words, to narrow her down to two limited roles that way. But he had to remind himself that, however inexplicably, this was the life she had chosen—she had diminished herself. And in that case, was it a diminishment at all?

"Hey," he said out loud, looking down at the cold piece of marble. "Sorry I didn't come earlier. It's been a while since I paid much attention to what happened around here. My mom did, though. She remembered you, and sent me the obi—the clipping from the paper." He shoved his hands into the pocket of his sportcoat, curling them into fists. The words came choppily, in fits and starts. "I can't believe you're … dead. It sounds so old. I'm sorry I didn't call you again after that last time—I should've. But I didn't think there was anything more to say. You were right, you know. I didn't have anything to give. Still don't, not the way you meant it. But I found a different way. I'm a teacher now. Seems to me you were the first one who told me I could do something like that, use my brains for once. So, thanks."

Andy paused for a moment, then wondered why. Was he waiting for her to answer him? He'd be waiting a long time, if so.

"I guess I didn't really think this through. I thought it would be like—like being with you again, hearing you laugh, talking to you, seeing you look at me the way you used to. No one's ever really seen me the way you did." He cleared his throat, feeling so exposed standing here talking to a stone. "But now you're … well, you're not there, are you? I don't know where you are. Does it sound stupid to say I miss you? I could've found you, anytime."

There was something profound he'd wanted to say, some connection he'd wanted to make, but now that he was here—

"I guess I just wanted to say good-bye. And thank you for everything."

A movement in the corner of his eye startled him, and he looked up. A lifetime lay between them, but he'd have recognized the red-headed woman coming toward him anywhere.

"Claire?"

"Hi."

"What are you doing here?"

She shrugged uncomfortably. Her black wool peacoat was worn at the elbows, and she was wearing jeans and hiking boots. The bright hair was cropped short, standing up in tousled spikes. "I come here sometimes."

"You do? Do you still live here?" If there was anyone he was sure would have shaken the dust of this town off their feet as soon as possible, it was Claire.

"Well, we're in Chicago, so it's not too far. And … I don't know, she just got me, you know?"

"So you guys have been in touch?" It felt so strange, as if a whole lifetime had gone by and yet nothing at all had changed. They could have been standing in the parking lot that Monday morning, for all he knew. Maybe he'd dreamed all the years in between.

"Yeah." She was looking at him like he was crazy for not knowing.

"Bender, too?"

Claire raised an eyebrow. "Married, twenty years next January. Three kids."

"No way."

"Way." They both grinned at the easy lapse into old slang.

"How'd that happen?"

"Took a lot of arguing. Still does. But he's got his own shop now, restoring old cars. He's an artist at heart," she said, her voice soft. "Allison understood him sometimes better than I do, so I'd come talk to her when things got too … real. She was good at rebuilding fantasies."

"You call your life a fantasy?"

Claire smiled. Andy couldn't get over how much happier she seemed than he remembered. "On the good days I do. What about you? Are you living a fantasy?"

"No, pretty much reality in my life. But … I think I wasn't cut out for fantasy." He glanced down at the grave. "Maybe that's why we didn't work; she never quite felt real. I never wrapped my head around the idea that someone like her saw anything in boring old me." Claire made a sound of sympathy, but he shook his head. "No, it's okay. Some of us have to be boring—makes more space for the special ones. Like her." Andy put a hand on the cold stone. She wasn't there, but it was okay. He still carried part of her inside him; he always had. He'd just forgotten. "Thanks," he said in her general direction. "I couldn't have done it without you."

Claire was still watching him, her head tilted to the side. He kissed her on the cheek, and walked past her, out of the graveyard. For some reason, he was suddenly looking forward to pizza and the game with his dad, his mom's cookies, and to going home to his school and his students. He couldn't wait for Monday morning.


End file.
